Chemical Blaze Looks Like Accident

No One Was Hurt In The Fire At A Uf Agriculture Center Near Leesburg. Now The Biggest Job Will Be Cleaning Up The Mess.

December 26, 1991|By Linda Chong Of The Sentinel Staff

LEESBURG — Lake County fire officials said Wednesday they believe the chemical fire at the University of Florida's Agriculture Research Center was touched off by accident.

Officials made that determination after interviewing people who had been at the center just south of Leesburg before the blaze broke out at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Lake County emergency management coordinator Bob Reymont said.

County fire officials expect the University of Florida to begin an investigation during the next few days, Reymont said.

UF officials also must arrange a cleanup and figure out whether hazardous chemicals remain, he said.

The center, a 15-by-60-foot mobile home that had been converted into an office, contained small quantities of 43 chemicals used for agriculture research, including xylene, chloroform and ammonium nitrate, Reymont said.

Nobody was inside the center when it caught fire, and no residents of the immediate area were injured from inhaling the fumes, Reymont said.

Lake County deputy sheriffs had evacuated about 400 Leesburg-area retirees while firefighters consulted with the state Department of Environmental Regulation on how to best deal with the smoldering blaze without igniting the chemicals inside.

Some neighborhood residents were kept from their homes for as long as 10 hours. Everybody returned home before the clock struck midnight to ring in Christmas Day, Reymont said.

But about midnight Tuesday, a Lake County fire crew returned to the scene to extinguish a small fire that had been rekindled, Reymont said.

The university is responsible for paying a cleanup crew to collect and dispose the fire debris, Reymont said.

The university also will be billed for costs involving the Lake County hazardous materials team, which responded to the fire.